Both the Obama and Trump administrations argued that the existing authorizations of force give the U.S. president a green light to fight terrorism beyond al-Qaeda.  

 

We find this to be a completely flawed argument.  For one, there is zero evidence that the Islamic State is an “associated force” of al-Qaeda in any way.  In fact, it’s more like they are in a weird, Jihadist competition with one another.  (read more here)

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Even if a modern-day link could be found between these two particular groups, there have been significant changes in the fight against terror since 2001, including expanded geography, violent extremist groups that we know are brand new, and the limits of our exhausted ground forces.

 

In his June 2021 War Powers Resolution letter to Congress, President Biden disclosed that U.S. military personnel are deployed and equipped for combat in at least Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Kenya, Djibouti, Libya, the Lake Chad Basin and the Sahel Region of Africa (including Niger), Cuba, Philippines, Egypt, and Kosovo.

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To make matters more absurd, absent an updated authorization, Congress is now having to explicitly say what military interventions are not authorized under the current AUMF, which is exactly backward.

 

For example, in November 2017, the U.S. House issued a non-binding resolution to let everyone know that America’s military assistance to Saudi Arabia in Yemen was not authorized by Congress:  “Congress has not enacted specific legislation authorizing the use of military force against parties participating in the Yemeni civil war that are not otherwise subject to the Authorization of Use of Military Force or the Authorization of Use of Military Force in Iraq.”

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Congress has also developed the habit of using its authority under the 1973 War Powers Resolution to block presidents (namely Donald Trump) from using military force abroad.  

 

The first time was in late 2018, when the Senate ordered an end to American military operations in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, which was essentially a bombing campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels. 

 

< Note:  Even though we don’t agree with Congress’ method of interceding, it’s good that they did something.  Make no mistake, this has been a humanitarian catastrophe, as bombs targeted civilian facilities and prevented critical aid shipments from getting to Yemenis. (read more here) >

 

The second was in 2019, when the House and Senate both agreed to curtail American military involvement in Yemen, a measure that was vetoed by Donald Trump, and the third was in February 2020, in response to the drone attack that killed Iranian Commander Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani. 

 

Suleimani was a senior official of the Islamic Republic of Iran who was close to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the commander of the Quds Force, the agency that is part of Iran’s formal military structure that is responsible for Iran’s covert military operations.  (read more here)

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This is a ridiculous process, not to mention dangerous.  Members of Congress need to do their damn job.

 

We the People must be diligent about demanding a new authorization of force because this is the slippery-est of slippery slopes. 

 

President Obama repeatedly violated our rule of law by going far beyond the parameters of the 2001 AUMF mandate, and Donald Trump did the same multiple times. 

 

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, American military actions (aircraft-conducted air strikes and/or ground combat) killed 499 civilians in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen in 2017, while “more than 450 reports of civilian casualties from 2017 remained to be assessed.”  Additionally, 169 civilians were injured.  Notice Syria and Yemen are included in that list. 

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In March 2017, Donald Trump granted the U.S. military more authority to attack al Shabaab militants (an extremist group linked to al-Qaeda) in Somalia.  Okay, at least there is some tie to an originally named AUMF target in that conflict. 

 

But three months later, a U.S. fighter jet shot down a Syrian warplane.  Despite the fact that nothing about this attack had anything to do with 9/11, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph F. Dunford Jr. said:  “We have all of the legal authority that we need right now to prosecute al-Qaeda, ISIS, other affiliated groups.” 

 

Again, we disagree with this premise but, to his credit, he went on to say that his “recommendation to the Congress was that they pass an authorization of use of military force.”

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In April 2018, Donald Trump ordered airstrikes against Syrian government forces to disrupt Syria’s ability to use chemical weapons — and he did so without permission from the U.S. Congress or the United Nations (the United Nations Charter is a U.S.-ratified treaty that prohibits the threat or use of force except when authorized by the United Nations Security Council or in a self-defense claim). 

 

The Trump administration’s claim was that “the President’s direction was consistent with many others taken by prior Presidents.”  They further explained that, before the attack, “(Trump) reasonably determined that the use of force would be in the national interest and that the anticipated hostilities would not rise to the level of a war in the constitutional sense.” 

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​Although we particularly appreciate the first part of the response — it’s the same one we used in high school to explain that “everyone else” also got drunk at the lake and blew curfew — these unilateral actions are 100% unlawful under the U.S. Constitution.  Syria had nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, nor are Syria and al-Qaeda associated allies. 
 

None of these actions are sanctioned by the 2001 AUMF and they are not justified under Donald Trump's Article II authority either: